"Dood van een Schaduw" or "Death of a Shadow" is a 20-minute short film from three years ago. It was written and directed by Tom Van Avermaet (not the cyclist obviously) and he managed an Academy Award nomination for his work here. I personally would have been fine with the film also winning the big prize as I am not much of a fan of Shawn Christensen's "Curfew". And this one here won many awards all over the world, but the only one it lost was also the most important one. Still a fairly massive achievement for such a young filmmaker especially and also for one that is not experienced at all as this was only his second release after another short film from over five years earlier.
The lead actor is Matthias Schoenaerts, who has become a big star since then and he plays his part convincingly as well. It's debatable if he boosted this film's popularity or if it was the other way around. In any case, a win-win situation for everybody. As for the rest of the cast, they are mostly Belgian actors and some from France as well as this is a Belgian/French co-production. I cannot really talk too much about those actors here as I simply do not know them, but besides Schoenaerts and the female lead and maybe Benjamin Ramon (Belgian too, even if the name does not sound like it) they have nothing to work with anyway. Oh, I almost forgot Peter Van den Eede. He was good as well. The aforementioned female lead is Laura Verlinden, again Belgian, even if her character's name Sarah Winters sounds British/American and she played her part very well, especially those moments when she seemed to have lost her mind. Besides, she is stunningly beautiful.
I think this film makes an impact with the key story, but there is also nice attention to detail. Like one moment stayed in the mind for me especially and that would be when we have Sarah's significant other whisper briefly before he is executed that he will be united with his love again. The male protagonist hears these words and he realizes that the man loves her at least as much as he does and the idea of seeing her again is something he has pursued for a long, long time with all the shadows he connected for his quest. In the end, I struggled a bit with his act of selflessness. I mean I get it he knew that he will most likely never be with her and he still wants her happy and that is why he sacrifices his life and somehow puts things into order again, also with his own death that he somehow managed to avoid. But yeah, he wanted her for so long and he is so angry at the other man initially and ready to kill him that it feels difficult to believe that he does what he does in the end. I would maybe explain it by saying that she was all that kept him alive and now he feels as if everything is pointless and that's why he accepts death eventually. Nonetheless it is kinda sweet to finally see her reunited with the one she loves and also see that she lived on for decades afterwards, probably a long and happy life.
As for the idea that I just mentioned how collecting these shadows allowed him to return to the living, there's some of it I like and some I did not like: What I found somewhat memorable was this very cold metallic machine we see here and also the noise it makes. This machine is connected with the essence of life (with the causes of death attached to it) while being nothing but cold steel basically. What I did not like was how the protagonist in the end basically could easily turn the tables on everything with the decision he makes. Seemed too powerful to me for somebody who is/was just a simple human being.
Still, I must say I could not enjoy this film as much as I hoped I would. There is just too much in here for 20 minutes: the deal with the devil, the man's obsession with the woman, the love story, the war references, the strange background with taking photos of dying people etc. I wish that the director could have elaborated more in one area and maybe left out other aspects. Still, this is not supposed to mean that this was a bad movie. It certainly is not. But it has the material for a 100-minute film and I am curious if Van Avermaet is ever going to adapt it, possibly with Schoenaerts as the lead actor as well. Good watch and I recommend it. The set decoration is really strong too. The visual side is certainly this film's biggest strength in general. No matter if we are talking about costumes, sets or make-up, the expertise is clearly visible. I also liked the way how they (or I should say he, namely Van Avermaet) made us realize with a little addition to the screen that we see things through the main character's eyes now. This was done with the wheels on the bottom left corner of the screen, the wheels that show us letters and names of the (potentially) deceased.
As you may have guessed, this was certainly good enough for me to give a positive recommendation overall. For a good film, it is a standard statement to say that it could have been longer and it would not have dragged, but for this one here I would even say it absolutely should have been longer to do justice to the story. 40 minutes at least, i.e. twice the running time or, with the right approach, this could easily also be adapted into a feature film. And maybe that way, I would even be more generous with my rating. It felt sadly very rushed and that took away a great deal of quality here. it could have been a truly memorable watch otherwise. Nonetheless, thumbs up. Not too easy to find really, but if you manage, then don't miss out and I am saying this as somebody who is not even much of a Schoenaerts fan. Watch it.
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